Number 37 - Six Four by Hideo Yokoyama

This month's book group book - a very hefty tome by a new author to me.

The back cover promises an exciting police procedural about an unsolved kidnapping from 14 years previously. Apparently the police press relations officer will wish he'd never found out what he discovers when he looks into the cold case.

David Peace states in a review on the back cover that this is one of the best crime novels ever written.

So I started this book with high hopes. Sadly, that review by David Peace makes me not want to ever read one of his novels.  If he thinks this book is that good, I really don't want to know what he writes.  If this is the bar he aims for... no thank you.

Warning - some spoilers in the review to follow.

What this book is, is 600 plus pages of office politics, about 5 to 10 pages of following the family of a kidnap victim and a few pages of the central character chatting with his wife about office politics.

We know the daughter of the central character is missing.  This is never resolved or indeed relevant to the story in hand. The probable identity of the original kidnapper/murderer is revealed near the end of the book, but in the most ridiculous method of solving a crime ever in fiction that I've ever read. And it's not even solved by the boring character we've been following for the last 630 pages. And he's not even been proved guilty by the police so he's not even been arrested.

I can almost see what the author is aiming for, but this book is at least 400 pages too long. People who accuse stephen King of bloat in his fiction need to read this.  They'll see what bloat is. 

Most "irrelevant" stuff in a King novel is good character building or community building.  It makes for a bigger picture and enriches the story whether it's relevant to the central plot or not (most of the time).  In this the irrelevant stuff is just that.  And it's repetitive. 

And it's repetitive.

And it's very repetitive. 

And it's extremely repetitive.

There would be less repetiton in a month long OCD convention than you'll find in this.

And after 630 pages of bloated repetion, there's not even a resolution to three quarters of the plot details. In fact make that nine tenths.  I saw in Waterstones yesterday a book called Prefecture D - also by this author.  Prefecture D is where all the office politics play out so I can only assume it's a sequel.  Maybe some of the plot details will be solved in that book.  Maybe not. I don't care.  The only thing about the sequel that looks promising is that it's a third of the length of this one.  Maybe he's learnt about conciseness in his writing since this book.

Not recommended.  3/10

Intermission - Joy PA by Steven Sherrill

As the book I'm currently reading is going to take another few days, and even then I can't post a review, I'm posting a review of one of the best books I think I've ever read. It popped up on my facebook the other day and it s almost exactly two years since I finished it (the first time) so it seems like a perfect book to revisit for the blog.

Steven Sherrill came to my attention when i picked up a copy of The Minotaur takes a Cigarette Break - just because I liked the title.The book proved every bit as good as the title and he was immediately added to my must buy pile.

This particular book took a while to find a publisher.  According to Mr Sherrill's website, they found it too dark.

It starts with the single best opening I have ever read (in fact - opening chapter...)

One. Two. three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen.
This is how many times we stab her.

The rest of the book more than lived up to the promise of that opening chapter.  these are the comments about the book I left on my facebook page at the time when I read it.

"Bleak now has a whole new meaning. this is one of the most, sod that, THE most emotionally draining book Ive experienced.

I say experienced not read because this book grabs hold of your brain and climbs inside. These characters and their different in/sanities feel so real. The swiftly changing narrative viewpoints disorient you and throw you at a wall of unrelenting... misery is an unfair word but I'm struggling to find another except bleakness.

But that's unfair as this is more than just bleak. The writing is so brilliant, you're swept through the story and long to know what's going to happen, no matter how shattering it might be.

However unlikely some of the character's actions might be, they fit perfectly with their personalities. Like Pat Highsmith at her best, you dread to think what might come next.

This is a must-read for anyone who likes great writing."

Time has not faded that opinion in the slightest. 

The novel is split into distinct narratives.  The three members of the Augenbaugh family - mother father and young son - tell the story of three days in their heavily dysfunctional life in a small town called Joy in Pensylvannia. It flits from one to the other randomly, very few sections being more than two pages long, the majority probably less than a page.

The mother, Abigail, believes rapture is at hand. Her sections are written in a normal(ish) third person present tense.  

Her husband, Burns, is a war veteran with PTSD who struggles to leave the basement. His sections are written in second person present tense.  This shouldn't work. It's impossible to make second person present tense work as a narrative form

You know this to be true.  You know this as surely as you know your own name. You have never seen any example of this style that actually works.

Until you read this book. Possibly because it's intercut so rapidly with the other two voices, possibly just because of the quality of the writing.  For whatever reason, this works.  And does so brilliantly.

The third voice is that of Willie, the 11 year old son.  We experience his world in a first person present tense stream of consiousness.  His parent's aberrations have certainly not been a positive influence on his life.  

There is a fourth voice that pops up occaionally, the first person plural narrative that opens the book. Never for more than a few lines at a time and always telling of the violence. It becomes clear that this is foreshadowing of the most persuasive type. We have no idea who the character is or who the victim is going to be until very late on in the novel.

Despite the foreshadowing, despite the fact we've been told this is going to happen and there's nothing will stop it, when it becomes clear what is about to happen, the tension becomes unbearable in any case.

This is far and away the best thing Mr Sherrill has written.

And that is truly saying an awful lot. 

Number 36 - Aphra's Child by Lesley Glaister

Lesley Glaister does YA fantasy... hmm

Several years ago, I was walking through the Manchester Deansgate branch of Waterstones when a book fell off the shelves as I walked past.  Completely randomly, no one near it.  I still have no idea why it fell off.  That book was The Insult by Rupert Thompson.  I picked it up off the floor and read the back cover before going to put it back on the shelf.  It sounded interesting so I opened it up to read the first page.

Half an hour later one of the assistants suggested to me that I might want to actually pay for the book since I was now about 40 pages into it.  The next shelf that copy of the Insult saw was mine in my house two days later. I have loved Rupert Thompson's writing ever since.

Every time I went to waterstones after that, I would check the Thompson section to see if there was anything new (or old that I didn't have yet). One day, in between two of Thompson's books, there was a misfiled book called Sheer Blue Bliss by one Lesley Glaister. Being the helpful sort of chap I am, I decided to put it where it should be.  I glanced at the back cover and thought it sounded interesting, so I flicked it open to check the first page.

Half an hour later one of the assistants suggested to me that I might want to actually pay for the book since I was now about 40 pages into it.  The next shelf that copy of the Insult saw was mine in my house two days later. I have loved Lesley Glaister's writing ever since.

She's always written psychological/crime novels in the Barbara Vine/Patricia Highsmith sort of category.  Crime without the detectives running around. The seamy and violent underside of civilisation writ large on the page. Characters that can really make your flesh creep as you root for her (sometimes only relativly) innocent heroes.  I have every book she's written and I wait with bated breath for her next one.

So when I heard she had a new book out I was really excited. I was a little late in getting hold of a copy, and when I saw it I was rather surprised.  I buy her books without reading anything but the title and her name on the cover so I had no prior knowledge of what this book was.

Instead of the usual creepy tale of emerging psychosis and murder, here I had in my hands was a YA fantasy novel about a girl with a tail. Also it's twice the page count of several of her previous works. There is a history of great literary writers falling flat  on their faces when switching to genre literature. I will confess to an alarm bell ringing in the back of my head when I picked this up.

Thankfully though, Glaister is a very good writer indeed. And there were some fantastical elements in Sheer Blue Bliss (a book I need to reread soon while I'm thinking about it) which were very well handled.

The alarm bells were very rapidly silenced.  This book dragged me straight into its world.  As well as humans and animals, several breeds of chimera were developed at some point in the future, just prior to a massive societal breakdown. Technology is limited in this world and chimeras act as slaves to the human world.

As in many books of this type, we are introduced to the world through the eyes of a complete innocent.  That's not a criticism, it's a tried and tested trope and when used well is the best way to show the new world.  The newcomer must find their own way and we are introduced at the same time. Believe me when I say it's used well in this novel.

In this case the innocent is Petula Nightingale, known as Tula. She's been raised by her mother, Aphra, in a secluded valley and knows nothing of the outside world.  When Aphra is snatched by a band of marauders, Tula goes on a quest to the city to fetch help.

The world building is entirely convincing.  As she stumbles through the city, Tula encounters assorted groups, from those wanting to help her, to those who wish her the deepest harm. Political groups on all sides take an interest in Tula. Aphra had good reason to hide her away from the world and, when Tula becomes somewhat of a local celebrity in the city, the interest groups come crawling out of the woodwork.  Who should she or can she trust? And what is the secret they want from her?

The style of writing is slightly more simplistic than I usually expect from Ms Glaister, but this doesn't stop it from being immensely readable and from dropping the occasional bon mot.  Tension is built admirably on many occasions.  Red herrings abound. None of her escapes from peril seem to be forced or impossible, and none of them are too simple either. The balance in this book is almost perfect.  I'm struggling to think of any particular niggle I had with this.

Thjere are strong parallels with our own world and tensions that exist here. Once again these are handled to perfection.  Not too heavy handed yet not so subtle to go unnoticed.  There is some real horror present in this world too. 

I'm now eagerly awaiting book two in the series.

An easy 8/10